Immediately following his final stage rehearsal for the evening’s 2015 DICE Awards at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas last week, as colored spotlights swept the seating and sound system checks echoed in the background, comedian Pete Holmes met with GamesBeat to talk about his approach to the evening’s awards as well as his views on game-awards shows in general.
Holmes picks the comedian host torch back up for the DICE Awards following last year’s departure — gaming personalities Felicia Day and Freddie Wong hosted, breaking a streak that had comedians such as Jay Mohr and Chris Hardwick onstage for a number of years. But his approach to hosting the prestigious gaming industry event (put on by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) is a bit different from that of his predecessors. He wants to blend some admiration into his comedy.
The stand-up comic and podcast host recognizes that he has the duty of hosting an award show that honors the life’s work of game creators, and he says that he wants to approach it as such.
“I would like to do it friendly,” Holmes says. “I have a couple of jokes making fun of Vegas or whatever, but for the most part, I like everything I do to be pretty inclusive. As cheesy as it sounds, celebratory. Positive and nice.”
In contrast to the edgy, punchy approach of some of the previous DICE Awards hosts, Holmes wanted to keep it respectful and entertaining. He opened with a great bit on how the characters of Final Fight might have a stomach ache after eating food they’ve found on the ground and in trash cans, and he wove funny bits throughout the night.
But his act has an underlying level of reverence, too.
“I think the name of the game is to try to own how important this is to all the people who have worked so hard on these games, and also, just trying to entertain them,” he says. “In the stand-up world, we call this a corporate gig — they can be a bit unlike what we’re used to. Nobody’s expecting comedy necessarily. They just want to win or see who is going to win. But I want to try to give them a good show and a good time. And also just a bit of respect.”
Holmes says that he is a good fit for this particular hosting gig.
“It’s a pretty easy job. It’s something I’m naturally interested in,” he notes. “And also doing comedy, I have a lot of stand-up that happened to be about video games anyway. It’s a very natural fit for me, at least. I hope everybody likes it.
While he admits to being a bit behind on the newest releases, he does spend a fair bit of time playing games. His current obsession is Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, which earned eight DICE Awards and one nomination this year.
Above: Talion can take control of orcs with his wraith powers.
“I’ve played it a lot,” says Holmes, speaking of Monolith Production’s open-world The Lord of the Rings licensed game. “But it still says that I’m only at 87 percent complete or something. I don’t know what’s left — I’ve done everything! At one point I had every orc in both maps, and they were all branded.
“I’m actually going through it. I didn’t realize that if you got all of the money in the game you could get these three super-updates that can make you, like, invisible for 90 seconds. There’s one that gives you unlimited executions for 90 seconds. It’s awesome. So I went around collecting all the trinkets and doing all of the slave missions just so I could get those.”
He’s also a fan of other open-world games, with Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed topping his list. But he notes that fighting orcs in Mordor is more fun than having cops chase you in GTA.
“I loved Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. I love all of the Assassin’s Creed games. In fact, that’s probably what I like about Shadow of Mordor — it just kind of borrowed from the best of everything,” he says. “It’s a sandbox game, and it has that Grand Theft Auto feel where you can go and do side missions.”
Holmes says that times have changed, and now pretty much everyone plays video games, the idea of one being a “gamer” is a bit old-fashioned.
“It’s like the way we used to have cinephiles,” he notes. “Now, everybody watches movies for the most part. There use to be gamers, but now I feel like even if it’s just Angry Birds on your phone, you’re still playing something.”
He talks about how an entertainment medium as big as video games deserves a good award show, and compares the Hollywood spectacle to gaming’s comparatively mild showings.
“It is a little behind the times that the interest isn’t matched by the televised award shows,” he says, speaking of the games industry.
“The thing I like about the DICE awards or even the Academy Awards is that it seems like such hoopla until you realize that so many people find out who won a certain thing and then they play it. It’s certainly the same with movies. You find out that Nightcrawler is getting all of those nominations and then people go out and see Nightcrawler. Similarly, there might be lesser known nominees that win an award that people will go out and pursue.”
And for this award show in particular, Holmes is happy to be a part of it. He notes that it feels genuine compared to other award shows.
“I’m glad to be involved in something that does have a little bit of purity to it. It does seem to be for the designers, programmers, and artists — for the talent,” he says. “I think it’s great that something like that exists.”